


forgiveness (can you imagine)

by nevereverever



Category: TAZ Balance - Fandom, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, (because Taako), Communication, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Swearing, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22120294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: When all his memories came flooding back, he couldn’t really shed the person he’d become. Maybe he’d been softer then, with his family on their ship. But he wasn’t anymore. Taako could be mean, and cruel. He was to lil Ango for a while. Taako was sarcastic. Taako could hold a grudge.And Taako did not forgive Lucretia.That has to change.
Relationships: The Director | Lucretia & Taako
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	forgiveness (can you imagine)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey. I listened to the whole Balance Arc in like a week and it was a whirlwind of dick jokes and emotions and last night I finished Story and Song, immediately wrote this, and fell asleep. I fucking love these characters and i was just thinking about that moment where Magnus and Merle hug Lucretia but Taako won't. 
> 
> Anyway, here's this, hope y'all like it. This fandom make so much good content I stg.

Taako was not good at subtle entrances and exits. When Taako entered a room, everyone there was going to know, in some way or another, that they had been graced with his presence. And when he left, well, he was all too good at running away. 

Taako was good at jokes, at magic, he was good at overly complex plans and deflection. He was a fuckin hilarious idiot flip wizard. For a lonely decade, he relied on those skills. When all his memories came flooding back, he couldn’t really shed the person he’d become. Maybe he’d been softer then, with his family on their ship. But he wasn’t anymore.

Taako could be mean, and cruel. He was to lil Ango for a while. Taako was sarcastic. Taako could hold a grudge.

And Taako did not forgive Lucretia. 

So there wasn’t a good reason that he had slipped out of bed with his hot n’ cold reaper boyfriend, desperately called a sphere, stormed past Avi and up and into her private quarters to make sure she was alive. He didn’t care about her.

But he did care in every nightmare where he saw her alone on the terrible dusty justice planet or bloody and trapped in vines or getting blown off the ground by a spell she couldn’t protect against.

And he knew she was okay and that it was objectively stupid to march all the way to the moonbase to see someone he was angry at and make sure she wasn’t dead. But it had been a really bad dream-

_It was Cycle 57 and the planet they’d landed on was wartorn, ravaged by a warlord overtaken by some fierce, evil magic. A warlord who had managed to get his hands on them. Him and Lucretia, who was groaning in agony with a wall between them. Some terrible anti-magic field meant neither of them could blast their way out, and he knew she couldn’t even if the field went down._

_“Lucretia, it’s gonna be okay. I’m sure Mags and Merle are storming through a battlefield someplace trying to get to us, and it probably looks dope as hell. You gotta stay alive to write down how dope it looks.” She answered with a pained moan. He took a deep breath despite the pain in his ribs and tried another tactic._

_“Hey, did I ever tell you about the time when Lup and I stole all of Barry’s blue jeans? You must have been doing something important cuz you weren’t there. It was, ahhh- it was Cycle 26-”_

_“Taako,” Lucretia’s voice was muffled and hoarse, “I know it’s early, but I think I’m gonna go. I can’t- can’t do this much longer.”_

_“No, don’t you fuckin leave me alone here, Cretia. We’ve got 10 months left. You gotta fight.” She keened like a wounded animal and she was quiet for a while, but he could hear her labored breathing._

_“I’ll always... fight for you.” Taako barely made out her words. Then silence._

He opened the door to her bedroom and it slammed against the wall because if he was going to do this stupid thing that he didn’t want to do, he was going to make a fucking entrance. The lights switched on and Taako watched Lucretia wake up and notice him.

There was a terrible sadness in her eyes and a fear that he hated. He didn’t have to cast Detect Thoughts to see that she was confused and in pain and she wasn’t lying.

“Taako?” She asked, sitting up in bed. She looked like she was inviting him to sit too. It reminded him of the countless times he’d snuck into her quarters on the Starblaster late at night to sit with her while she wrote. He didn’t move closer.

“I am so pissed at you, Cretia,” were the first words out of his mouth. He could feel his eyes start to water. 

“I understand that-” she started, hesitant, but he cut her off.

“Don’t come at me with some ‘I did what was best’ bullshit because maybe you did, and maybe we saved the world because of you. But you took my life from me. It was not yours to mess with in the first place. I was alone. Cretia, you took- you took my sister-” The lump in his throat became too large to speak around any longer, and he choked on his words. He started to cry, honest to goodness sob, and he couldn’t see Lucretia’s face anymore.

“I was wrong, Taako. I hurt you and I’m sorry.” Everything was blurry, but he saw shapes move and he felt arms around him. His body went stiff under her touch. The air around them felt still and stifling. Her gentle arms holding him up wouldn’t fix this. He was seething and mourning and loving and-

“I am still so mad at you and part of me wants to hate you, but I can’t. I don’t know how to hate you and I missed you. I missed loving you,” he said. Once he got the words out, he brought his arms up to clutch at Lucretia’s shirt, returning her embrace. They held each other for a long moment before Taako realized that the woman in his arms was crying too. And part of him, the cruel part that wanted so badly to hate her and to be alone again, said ‘Good. She deserves it.’

“Taako, I’m sorry,” she said, the gravitas gone from her voice, replaced with a rush of pent up anguish. 

“You should be,” Taako said, pulling back from the hug to hold Lucretia at an arm's length. His anger came surging back and he didn’t want to do it. He didn’t think he could forgive. Fear flickered over her face. “You should be.” 

“Do you remember the meeting we had towards the end of Cycle 67?” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she looked determined. 

“I think so,” he had to wrack his brains for a second. It was all still a little fuzzy, and it just made him angrier because it was her who had rustled around until things didn’t work anymore until he realized the meeting she was talking about. He gasped, quiet and small. 

“We sat in a circle on Maggie’s floor, the 5 of us because Merle had left us to talk to John and Dav died on a mission, and we talked about-” he interrupted her.

“We talked about things we loved about each other,” he finished. She nodded again. “I don’t remember what you said.” He did. He was lying, but Merle wasn’t there to fuck up Zone of Truth, so it went uncontested. He needed to hear her say it.

“I said that I loved you because you never stopped fighting for me,” she said, taking a step towards him. She took his hand and he didn’t pull away. When had he stopped fighting for their family?

“I think I said I liked the way you loaded the dishwasher,” he replied, barely smiling and squeezing her hand. She smiled,

“Yeah because you’re a fuckin goof,” she said. And that moment, it was all Lucretia. It was the girl he met in the Academy that snuck him and Lup elven candy, that helped hold them together on a century-long journey.

“I do... love you. And I’m angry and I don’t really know how to do those two things at once, but we’re gonna figure it out.” He brought a hand to his face to wipe away the tears, and he smiled. He brushed a tear from her cheek too. She was quiet for a minute, a few more tears falling as they stood there, hand in hand. She looked tired, and Taako almost very nearly felt bad for waking her up in the middle of the night.

“Here’s what I don’t really get, though,” he looked her in the eyes, “you hate macarons.” That finally got her to laugh.

“I needed to see you smile. It had been so long, and I kept seeing you do that fakey one to everyone at the party. I needed to see you really smile, and the only foolproof way to do that is to complement your cooking.” Taako definitely meant to say some awesome quip, to keep laughing and smiling, maybe that would finally make this better. 

“You must have been so lonely. We were there, but we weren’t really.” Lucretia nodded, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut. It was a face he recognized. Whenever one of them died on the Starblaster, Lucretia had to write it down. Sometimes he would find her, making that face and writing, tears occasionally falling onto the pages. He remembered not knowing how to help, fetching Cap’n’port or Magnus.

“I don’t- ugh. Listen, babe. I’m not _not_ mad at you. You did a lot of shitty stuff in the last decade, and a lot of it ended up on my plate. But also, you’re a BAMF who helped us save the world and- and you’re my fucking family. So, in the morning, please come down from the moon and have family breakfast with us in Neverwinter.” He let out a big sighing breath and the tension and anger and fear subsided. 

“I would love that. I love you.” In the wake of such intense feelings, the adrenaline left his body and he was tired. He yawned, and she quirked an eyebrow. He giggled and shook his head. She pulled him towards her bed like she had many times before, and they slept.

Taako was not a dreamer. He lived in the moment, and in that moment he was safe with his family.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a note if you'd like, I love them <3 Thank you for reading


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